Move
by procol harum
Summary: “Not your fault,” Tom mumbled. “Just promise you won't leave me? I mean, I hate it. All of it, but maybe, maybe you could help.”


for 100songs on livejournal...

**Title: **Move

**Fandom: **21 Jump Street

**Prompt:** 001. Dare You to Move by Switchfoot

**Rating: **eh. PG...

**Warnings: **suicide attempt... angst. kinda slashy undertones.

**Disclaimer: **Own nothing.

**Summary:** "Not your fault," Tom mumbled. "Just promise you won't leave me? I mean, I hate it. All of it, but maybe, maybe you _could_ help."

**A/N: **emo-tom. sorry...

---

He wouldn't move, not really. He would wake up in the mornings, shower, get dressed, go to work. Maybe drink a coffee, but he didn't eat. No breakfast, not lunch, maybe dinner. He ate nothing else, though. No afternoon snacks, no quick bites on the way into work. He was getting thinner, it was easy to tell. He'd always been small, but now it was ridiculous. And it wasn't funny. It could never be funny when you had to watch your friend, best friend, slowly dying, slowly killing themselves. When he was done with work he would go home, maybe drink a beer, or two or three, and watch tv. If he ever fell asleep he did it sometime after midnight, passed out on the couch, whatever show or movie he had been watching flickering uselessly on the screen, unwatched, unneeded. But Doug never turned it off after Tom was asleep. He had once, but Tom had bolted awake in the sudden darkness, crying out and shaking violently. He didn't like to sleep in the dark; if you slept in complete darkness it was easier for something bad to happen.

A month and a couple of weeks after Tom was released, Doug found him curled up on the bathroom floor, a bottle of painkillers empty on the floor beside his nearly lifeless body. Doug had gotten them a week before for a head wound he'd received while chasing a suspect. He hadn't needed to take them anymore but hadn't thought to get rid of the remaining half. He didn't really think there was any harm in keeping them. He wished he hadn't.

"Tom, Tommy, come on buddy," Doug whispered gently, crouching low and lifting Tom's head up off of the floor. "You just, you gotta wake up, alright? Open your eyes, please." He kept begging but Tom didn't move, save for the slow rise and fall of his chest and Doug thought that Tom shouldn't be breathing that slow. He lifted Tom up, realizing just how thin he was with the movement, and carried him out to the couch. He had the phone in his hands not even ten seconds after laying his friend down on the couch.

As Doug relayed his emergency to the operator he couldn't help but stare at Tom. He looked so peaceful lying there, and Doug wished that that was all it was. A friend sleeping away his day, no troubles in mind. Except Tom's troubles were always there, always plaguing him, and sleep only made the nightmares come back.

Tom blinked his eyes open slowly five hours later. He was in the hospital, he realized, but wasn't sure why. And his stomach hurt, really bad... Oh yeah. That explained why he was where he was.

"Tom," Doug mumbled, sitting up quickly in the chair he occupied beside the bed. "Jesus Tommy, I thought I'd lost you for good."

Tom smiled weakly, a small hint of his former self in that simple gesture. "I'm sorry," he replied. "I never, never thought. I just wanted it go away, and I thought that... that _it_ would help."

"I can help," Doug said. "I always will, you know that. You should have just come back to me. I'm sorry for not getting rid of those damn pills, too. I never thought you'd do... this. That. I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," Tom mumbled. "Just promise you won't leave me? I mean, I hate it. All of it, but maybe, maybe you _could_ help."

"I promise to stay if you promise to just try. To just get up outta this bed, outta this... funk, and _move_. Because it will get better, I swear. But you gotta try, alright?"

Tom stared at Doug, unsure of what to stay. Because he wasn't sure it would get better, if he could make it better. But he could at least try, because maybe Doug was right. Maybe trying _was_ all he needed to help himself.


End file.
